Complex Authorship: Museum, Archives, Laboratory

Abstract

: Between 2006 and 2010, Reinaldo Laddaga published Estética de la Emergencia and Estética de laboratorio, two books especially devoted to a profound reflection on the ways of understanding literary theory and criticism applied not only to literary texts but also to works of art, cinema and other cultural devices. Sensitive to a new “culture of the arts”, Laddaga’s concept of “complex authorship” immediately proved to be a particularly productive notion for understanding a number of 21st century artistic works. In fact, Laddaga himself tested forms of art and “complex literature”, in coauthorship -following his own formulations- with Borges, Bioy Casares, Jean de Mandeville, Thomas de Quincey, Raymond Russel or Herman Melville. Almost twenty years after the first of these books and more than a decade after the second, the present work rescues the productivity of Laddaga’s theoretical elaborations in the light not only of his own literary production, but also in dialogue with other works particularly sensitive to the ideas of this author.